


In the Bower of Eternity

by withyr_wyther



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I may or may not have used this as an excuse to talk about stars, I wrote this instead of doing my homework, Oneshot, Sad, but more melancholy than sad sad, gliese 667, thirteen may or may not be an eldritch entity, thirteenth doctor alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:28:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29701968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withyr_wyther/pseuds/withyr_wyther
Summary: Thirteen has an existential crisis.----------------------------------------------------------------------The thing about the stars is that everyone thinks they’re cold. Of course, this is not true; real stars burn a thousand times hotter, fiercer, and more intensely than almost anything else in the known universe, but from a distance, they look cold. From the surface of a planet (pick one, it doesn’t matter which) stars are distant and pale, even at their brightest, and their light is clear and cool in turn.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	In the Bower of Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> Am I projecting my thoughts about loneliness onto the thirteenth doctor? The world may never know.

The thing about the stars is that everyone thinks they’re cold. Of course, this is not true; real stars burn a thousand times hotter, fiercer, and more intensely than almost anything else in the known universe, but from a distance, they look cold. From the surface of a planet (pick one, it doesn’t matter which) stars are distant and pale, even at their brightest, and their light is clear and cool in turn. 

The Doctor, of course, knows this is not true. She’s pulled the Tardis up close to the stars more times than anyone who ever was or would be alive, and so is intently familiar with how they burn and burn and burn themselves, exploding outwards hundreds of times a second. She knows how one day each and every one of them will die, collapsing in on themselves and exploding outwards for the final time. She knows how each and every one of them will scatter into dust and become the nebulae that sooner or later will condense and form new stars all over again, trapped in an endless cycle of rebirth. Stars are a bit like she is, she supposes. 

Stars are scattered out across the universe. Some of them even gather crowds: a comet here, a planet or two there, possibly even form a binary pair like Alpha Centauri, but eventually they will all be alone again. New companions for a new life. That is the way of stars. 

When she was young, she had Susan. She also had Barbara and Ian, but that was a long time ago, faces ago, ages ago, lifetimes. She’s had Nyssa, Adric, Ace, Sarah-Jane, Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy and Rory, Clara, Bill - even River on occasion- but the most recent ones to leave are always the ones that hurt the most. And the Doctor has had so many faces and so many friends that it is easy to compartmentalize. It’s almost too easy for her to lock them away and pretend they happened to someone else, because in a way they did. It is impossible to be hurt by someone else’s pain. 

_ So why did she still feel it? _ The Doctor locked the Tardis into orbit around her second favorite planet- Gliese 667. It’s washed out red skies and triple suns reminded her vaguely of Gallifrey, but in a way that was removed enough that all she felt was melancholy and none of the anger and guilt that usually came with thoughts of home . In a way, it was the physical representation of those rose-tinted glasses that everybody talks about. She blamed it on the light. 

In their science- fiction, some humans had theorized they would one day live on this planet, but they never would never make it this far. Humanity instead, had expanded out over the other side of the universe and the landscape below remained abandoned. It was a rarity to find a planet where nothing lived, but Gliese 667 made it work. 

She opened the door to the Tardis and sank down into a criss-cross position, staring out as she drifted through space as the only life form for light years. Yaz was at home, visiting her family as well as Ryan and Graham. They had left a while ago now. It was hard to tell how long though, for when she was alone the Doctor often didn’t see the need to keep a conscious track of time. With no humans around, always so concerned with its passage, why would she? She could let that constant awareness of seconds tick by fade into the background of her mind, in a way similar, but not quite identical to the way she was unaware of her own breathing. The Tardis whirred gently in the background.

She let her gaze fall past the dusky atmosphere of Gliese and into deep space beyond where galaxies collided into waterfalls of radiation and vast cosmic lakes of nothing at all but void. Here, looking down the bower of eternity, was the only place she could feel truly alone. 

And she was more alone than ever. 

Isolated from her past, isolated from her home, isolated from wherever it was she had come from, and abandoned by her friends, although she knew they hadn’t really abandoned her. At this point, the only one who had never left her was the Tardis, and even the old girl was questionable sometimes. The Doctor choked out a long dry laugh. It sounded hollow to her ears. 

For the first time in her memory, she didn’t know who she was. There had been times where the Doctor had not liked who they were (she still got an unpleasant cold feeling when she thought about the War Doctor) but that hadn’t stopped them from simply knowing. She was adrift in space, floating through the galaxies without the wind to carry her, untethered by any gravity to pull her in. Everything from the hottest star to the smallest piece of dust was bound by something, and in that she wasn’t, she was alone in the universe. As if to mock her, at that very moment a comet chose to streak across the black as it was pulled along its course. 

She watched silently as its glow faded into the distance, bound for new horizons.

Abruptly, the Doctor stood, the Tardis door slamming shut behind her, and turned to the consul all bathed blue in the cool light of the control room. Wallowing had never done anyone any good. She ran her hand over the controls almost reverently, considering. She had had enough of being alone to last all of her lifetimes, she didn’t need anymore. A new sense of certainty came over her and she set about the consul pulling levers and switches. She might be a star, or she might not. She might be a mouse, trapped in an inescapable psychological experiment. She might not even be of this universe. But she was the Doctor, she thought as she pulled the final lever launching the Tardis into motion towards Sheffield - and that would never change. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am a big fan of stars, if you could not tell.


End file.
